Consisting of three chapters, Part I of this book provides theoretical and practical analyses, delineating the overriding status of the shareholder value paradigm in the UK. As a conceptual foundation for the whole book, Chapter One provides an overview of relevant concepts and mechanisms within corporate governance, which we will come across frequently in the subsequent chapters. It starts by reviewing the genesis and signifi cance of corporate governance, followed by an exploration of major corporate governance issues and mechanisms surrounding the corporate objective debate, including various stakeholders’ interests, the structures and strategic roles of boards, external market structures and regulatory regimes. The last section outlines existing shareholder-oriented corporate governance mechanisms in the UK, on the basis of which the prospect of the continued precedence of shareholder value will be analysed in the following chapters.